storing fruit and veg

Chris25

got some 'balls' today from the 99p shop - you keep them in the fridge and they absord the gasses from the fruit & veg, helping them keep for longer. Have no idea whether they'll work but I think it's the same idea as the StayFresh bags as they contain the same sort of minerals.

mardatha

uWe have had deep snow for over a fortnight and the last time I got out to a shop was the tues before xmas I think ( lost track of the days lol ). I did get an asda delivery, a brilliant guy struggled up the hill with a trolley through deep snow (wearing a tshirt ouch ! ) when his van couldnt get through. BUT....if it hadnt been for him then we would have been stuck. I had run out of VEG. Things to make soup with, and we live on soup ! Potatoes, onions, carrots, mushrooms, I had none.
Now I know I can store onions - but a sack of potatoes and only the 2 of us in the house, both are on diets and keep the carbs low - the potatoes will spoil before we can use them. Carrots I need to have !! but how do you store them ? Can anybody suggest how I can store shop bought ones this winter in case this happens again ? - just until I get some planted this spring?

pink_numbers

Do you have freezer space? I chop/grate the carrots in my food processor using different blades, pack them in containers and freeze them

flissh

I seem to remember once seeing on a gardening prog (I think!) about storing root veg in sand in wooden boxes in a cool dark place like the garden shed.

Butterfly_Brain

I freeze my veg on the day I buy it and I also have a few stand by tins of mixed veg

sunflower76

Carrots and potatoes can be stored in a bed of sand or in an underground clamp. If you grow your own onions next year you can either tie them like this or keep them in old tights and they'll last you ages hung somewhere cool and dry.

I keep carrots, spuds and onions in our old fashioned understairs pantry, which is really cold, and find that carrots last 2 - 3 weeks without going bendy. This only works with my veggie box carrots, for some reason nice, clean, supermarket ones seem to wither far more quickly. Spuds and onions last forever it seems.

I'm assuming that you don't have a pantry but maybe you do have a garage or shed where you could keep them frost free and dry?

mardatha

ok thank you. I will try both these methods, freeze as much as I can shove in the freezer, and try some in a box in the shed. TY !:D

Olliebeak

If there's any of slightly poorer quality, make sure that those get used up first.

The ones that you are going to try to store in sand/peat in a cool shed, make sure that they have NO blemishes whatsoever and that they are not touching each other - sprinkle a good layer of sand/peat in between each layer of veg .

socks_uk

I went to the supermarket on Christmas Eve and got loads of bargain veg and it's all still in the boot of my car! We even put the turkey carcass in there as there was no room in the fridge!

We are now 9 days later and some of it has been made into soup (no, the turkey isn't still in the car!) but the veg is all still perfectly ok. I have to say though that I haven't used my car too much over the festive period and I do know about excess weight using more fuel... saying that... there is no more weight than if I was carrying a small child in the car.

We also use a plastic storage shed/box (about 3ft tall) to keep bottles of lemonade, cola, water and even beer in it but our garden is relatively secure. It's as cold as in the fridge, sometimes colder! We also use the car again for bottles but only when we aren't using using it too much due to the weight.

Primrose

We keep all our surplus fresh veg and fruit in our cool garage in coytton bags (those free bags which charities often hand out to promote the disuse of plastic bags) and this method works well. You can also store them in boxes covered with newspaper but not in plastic bags. If you can get to a Farm shop they often sell potatoes in heavy brown paper sacks and these store well in a cool place. if you don't have a suitable storage place for potatoes, varieties of tinned beans, pulses, and dry pasta & rice will often substitute. Incidentally, for storing large amounts of dry pulses & pasta those large plastic jars containing sweets in Confectioners are ideal and if you have such a shop near you they are often happy to let you have their empty ones.